Homily for Saint Luke and the Widow of Nain in the Orthodox Church

 Luke 7:11-16

Yesterday was the feast day of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of our parish.  As the author of both a gospel and Acts, St. Luke wrote more of the New Testament than anyone else. He was also the first iconographer.   Luke was a Gentile and emphasized that those who responded best to the Lord were often those least expected to.  He is the only evangelist to record the parables of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and the Pharisee and the Publican.  He reports that St. Zacharias, an aged priest who should have known better, doubted the word of the Archangel Gabriel that he and St. Elizabeth would conceive a child, St. John the Forerunner, despite their barrenness and old age.  In other words, he and his wife would be blessed as were Abraham and Sarah, whose story he surely knew quite well.  Then Luke tells us of the Theotokos’ humble acceptance of the Archangel’s astonishing announcement that she would be the virgin mother of the Savior: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.  Let it be to me according to your word.” (Lk. 1:5-38) Who would have expected that a young virgin girl would have responded better to this incredible news than an old priest had to a continuation of what God had done at the foundation of the house of Israel? 

St. Luke was a physician, which may be part of the reason that he records the meeting of the Theotokos and St. Elizabeth during their pregnancies, when John leaped in the womb in miraculous recognition of the presence of the Lord.  Elizabeth was then filled with the Holy Spirit and proclaimed, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”  In response, the Theotokos speaks the Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.  For He has regarded the lowly estate of His maidservant; for behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.” (Lk. 1:39-48) Luke describes the interaction of two pregnant women, both in unlikely circumstances, who literally embody how God’s salvation is coming into the world.  They embrace their roles at the very center of the story in ways that challenged dominant assumptions about the relative unimportance of women in that time and place.

St. Luke writes that the Theotokos’ song of praise continues with bold prophetic speech about God’s reversal of the standards of our corrupt world: “He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.  He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly.  He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich He has sent away empty.” (Lk. 51-53)  It is no surprise, then, that Luke alone records the Savior saying: “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.  Woe to you who are full, for you shall hunger.  Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.  Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets.”  (Lk. 6:24-26) The gospel according to St. Luke portrays the Kingdom of our Lord in ways that challenged dominant assumptions about power, wealth, and fame in this world as a sign of God’s favor and a reward for virtue.  Indeed, Christ teaches that they are often the complete opposite.    

In St. Luke’s description of the beginning of Christ’s public ministry, He fulfills this prophecy from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, and to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Lk.4:18-19)  We would have to be spiritually dense not to comprehend that the Lord came to share His gracious mercy with those in great need in every dimension of their personhood as living icons of God.  We will fool only ourselves if we assume that malnourishment, homelessness, disease, trauma, imprisonment, and injustice are spiritually irrelevant.  Were that the case, why would the Savior teach that however we treat “the least of these” is how we treat Him?   St. Luke interprets our Lord’s ministry in a way that highlights how His salvation is a blessing especially for those who are weak and suffering in this world.  If we are truly uniting ourselves to Christ in faith and faithfulness, we must manifest His love in practical, tangible ways to our neighbors who are in need.  If we refuse to do so, we risk falling into an illusory spirituality that has little to do with how salvation has come into the world through the God-Man, born of a woman.

St. Luke knew that our Lord’s Kingdom is not only a future hope, but also a present reality, for as He reports Christ saying, “the kingdom of God is within you.” (Lk 17:21)   Remember how the Lord responded to the question of whether He was the Messiah: “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the   lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.” (Lk. 7:22) Those are the words of the New Adam who came to heal all the infirmities of His suffering sons and daughters. Today’s reading from the gospel according to St. Luke comes right before that passage.  The widow of Nain was having the worst day of her life and had no reason to hope for a blessed or even tolerable future, for in that setting a widow who had lost her only son was in a very precarious state.  Poverty, neglect, and abuse would threaten her daily; she would have been vulnerable and alone.  When contrary to all expectations the Lord raised her son, He transformed her deep mourning into great joy. He restored life itself both to the young man and to his mother.

The Lord’s great act of compassion for this woman manifests our salvation and provides a sign of hope in even the darkest moments of our lives in our fallen world.  We weep and mourn not only for loved ones whom we see no more, but also for the brokenness and disintegration that we know all too well in our own souls, the lives of our loved ones, and the world around us.   Death, destruction, and decay in all their forms are the consequences of our personal and collective refusal to fulfill our vocation to live as those created in the image of God by becoming like Him in holiness.  We weep with the widow of Nain not only for losing loved ones, but also for losing what it means to be a human person as a living icon of God in a world that seems so far from transformation into the Kingdom of our Lord.

           The good news of the Gospel, especially as interpreted by St. Luke, is that the compassion of the Lord extends especially to those who endure the most tragic circumstances and the most profound sorrows.  Purely out of love for His suffering children, the Father sent the Son to heal and liberate us from slavery to the fear of death through His Cross and glorious resurrection. The Savior touched the funeral bier and the dead man arose.  Christ’s compassion for us is so profound that He not only touched death, but entered fully into it, into a tomb, and into Hades, because He refused to leave us to self-destruction.   He went into the abyss and experienced the terror of the black night of the pit.  The Theotokos wept bitterly at His public torture and execution, not unlike mothers today who weep at the loss of their children.  When He rose victorious over death in all its forms, He provided the only true basis of hope that the despair of the grave will not have the last word on the living icons of God. 

            The widow of Nain wept bitterly out of grief for the loss of her son.  Christ wept at the tomb of his friend St. Lazarus, not only for him, but for us all who are wedded to death as the children of Adam and Eve, who were cast out of Paradise into this world of corruption.  We weep with broken hearts out of love for those whose suffering is beyond our ability to ease, those who are no longer with us in this life, and those from whom we have become otherwise estranged due to our common brokenness.  We must learn to weep for ourselves as those who have caught a glimpse of the eternal blessedness for which we came into being and who know how far we are from entering fully into the joy of the Lord.  The corruption that separates us from God and from one another takes many forms and the same is true of our healing and restoration.  The particular paths that we must follow in order to embrace Christ’s victory over death as distinctive persons will certainly vary.  But they must all be routes for gaining the spiritual clarity to learn to mourn our sins and take the steps that are best for our healing and restoration as whole persons in the world as we know it.  If we refuse to take those steps and simply wait passively to ascend someday into heavenly peace, we will only weaken ourselves even further as we refuse to do what is necessary to lift up our hearts to receive the Lord’s healing today.  There is no way around the truth that we must do the hard work of taking up our crosses and following Him, especially in the service of our suffering neighbors in whom He is present, if we want to share in His blessed life.  For as St. Luke saw so clearly, His Kingdom stands in stark contradiction to the corrupt ways of our fallen world.  The same must be true of us.   

             

Homily for the Sunday of Holy Fathers of Seventh Ecumenical Council & Fourth Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

 

Titus 3:8-15; Luke 8:5-15

 

There is so much about our culture today that keeps us constantly in a hurry and distracts us from giving the time and focus that are necessary to flourish as the persons God created us to become.  We want answers for the deep struggles of our lives with the speed of looking something up on the internet.  We have lost respect for the many years of preparation that it takes to develop expertise in so many areas of life.  The same is true of our disregard for the pursuit of wisdom, which typically comes through the long experience of a life well lived.  We must be on guard against becoming so accustomed to accepting quick, easy, and superficial answers that we lack the patience necessary to bear good fruit for the Kingdom of God.

 

That is why we all need to concentrate our attention today on commemorating the 367 Holy Fathers of the 7th Ecumenical Council, which met in Nicaea in 787.  The council rejected the false teaching that to honor icons is to commit idolatry, for it distinguished between the worship that is due to God alone and the veneration that is appropriate for images of Christ, the Theotokos, and the Saints.  The council’s teaching highlighted the importance of the Savior’s incarnation, for only a truly human Savior with a physical body could restore us to the dignity and beauty of the living icons of God in every dimension of our existence.

 

We can be sure that these matters are not trending on social media or the focus of influencers who shape popular opinion today.  Perhaps we should take that as a reminder that our faith stands in severe tension with the unserious culture in which we live. The 7th Ecumenical Council addressed matters that strike at the very heart of how we embrace our fundamental vocation to become like God in holiness in a world that so desperately needs the peace of Christ.  Too often, however, we think that iconography simply has to do with wood and paint and is unrelated to the question of whether we are becoming more like Christ and gaining the strength to seek first His Kingdom in the midst of our world of corruption.  The icons are not merely religious art, but reminders that to become a truly human person is to become like Jesus Christ, Who refused to accommodate His ministry to what was popular and easy in first-century Palestine.   That is why those who worshipped only the fulfillment of their desires in this world rejected and condemned Him.  After bearing their abuse with patience to the point of death, He rose in glory on the third day.  

 

Today’s gospel reading addresses what it means to become a beautiful living icon of Christ with different imagery.  In an agricultural society, Christ used the parable of the sower to call His disciples to become like plants that grew from the seed that “fell into good soil and grew, and yielded a hundredfold.”  He wanted them to become “those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth fruit with patience.”  Not all who hear the Word of God will do so, even as not all seeds will grow to fruition.   Some never even believe, while others make a good start and then fall away due to temptation or “are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.” 

 

We do not have to be experienced farmers or gardeners to see that this parable calls us to fulfill our potential as those who bear the image of God.  Our vocation is to become more beautiful living icons of the Savior, but we diminish and distort ourselves when we refuse to become who God created us to be.  Plants must grow and flourish as the kinds of plants that they are in order to become healthy and bear fruit.  Farmers must care for them accordingly.  The sun, soil, moisture, and nutrients must be appropriate for that particular type of plant in order for them to flourish.  In order for us to bear good fruit for the Kingdom, we must attend to the health of our souls with the patience and focus of a careful farmer or gardener.  We must do so in order to become more fully who we are as living icons of Christ.  If, to the contrary, we become impatient and distracted for whatever reason, we will not persist and will become unable to bear good fruit for the Kingdom.   

 

In today’s epistle lesson, St. Paul urged St. Titus to tell the people to focus on doing good deeds and helping others in great need.  He wanted them to avoid foolish arguments and divisions, “for they are unprofitable and vain.”  St. Paul did not want the people to waste their time and energy on matters that would simply inflame their passions and hinder them from attaining spiritual health and maturity.  He called them to care for their spiritual wellbeing with the conscientiousness of farmers who are single-mindedly dedicated to bringing in a bumper crop.  If they let down their guard to the point of being so consumed by pointless controversies that they ignored basic disciplines like loving and serving their neighbors, they would risk dying spiritually like a neglected plant overtaken by weeds. 

 

If we are to become “those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth fruit with patience,” we must refuse to allow distorted desires of whatever kind to take root in our hearts and minds, regardless of what is happening in our world, our nation, or our families.  We must do the hard, daily work of learning to trust and hope in the Lord as we mindfully turn away from fueling our passions and instead invest ourselves in serving the living icons of Christ who are our neighbors in practical, tangible ways. In order to bear good fruit for the Kingdom, we must refuse to allow anything to distract us from sharing more fully in His blessed eternal life.  Unless we struggle mindfully against these temptations, they will easily choke the life out of our souls. Because our risen Lord has conquered even the grave through His glorious resurrection on the third day, we must refuse to become enslaved to our passions, which are all rooted in the fear of death, and instead focus on becoming more beautiful icons of the Savior. That is the only way to know true peace in this world.

 

Contrary to the immediate gratification that we have come to expect in so many areas of life, to mature to the point that we bear fruit a hundredfold for the Kingdom will take time. It will take the patience not only of the passage of time but more importantly of repentance when we find ourselves distracted and weakened by our passions and fall short of our calling time and time again.  Instead of abandoning the Christian life when we do not get the results that we want on our own timetable, we must accept the truth about ourselves with humility and redouble our efforts to focus on “the one thing needful” of hearing and obeying the Word of God. (Lk 10:42)  We must ground our daily lives in prayer, fasting, and generosity toward our neighbors in order to gain the spiritual strength necessary to persevere and refuse to fall into despair.  Following St. Paul’s advice, we must also take a close look at our lives to see if we are wasting our time, energy, and attention on “foolish disputes” that simply inflame our passions and distract us from patiently finding the healing of our souls. It is so easy to be “choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life” to the point that we never mature and bear good fruit.  With the patient endurance of a careful farmer, let us tend the garden of our souls each day and refuse to be discouraged by our failures or the appealing distractions that are all around us.  That is the only way to fulfill our vocation to become beautiful living icons of Christ, the fully divine and fully human Savior Who has brought life to the world.

 

 

 

 

The Countercultural Struggle of Loving our Enemies: Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost & Second Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church

 

2 Cor.  6:16-7:1; Luke 6:31-36

 

We live in a time in which many people think that it is somehow virtuous to hate, condemn, and wish the very worst for people they consider their enemies for whatever reason.  Since every human person is a living icon of God, there is nothing more dangerous to our souls than to embrace such wickedness in our hearts. The Lord said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matt. 5:8) There is perhaps no greater test of the purity of our hearts than whether we respond with love and forgiveness to those who have wronged us, as He did to those who crucified Him, saying “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” (Lk. 23:34)   As Orthodox Christians, our calling is nothing less than to embody the mercy of God from the very depths of our being. That sublime vocation goes well beyond being an outwardly religious or moral person who feels justified in determining who deserves our good will, care, and forgiveness.  As those who share in the life of God by grace as “partakers of the divine nature,” we must love all our neighbors as He has loved us. 

 

In today’s gospel reading, the Lord spoke words that have always been hard to hear: “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.  Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”  In this passage from the gospel according to St. Luke, Christ does not rest content with calling His followers to limit their vengeance to “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” even though that Old Testament principle had placed needed restraint on vengeance. (Matt. 5:38) He did not affirm the common attitude of the time, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,” an attitude that unfortunately remains with us today in so many ways, including religion, politics, and ethnicity.   (Matt. 5:43) Instead, the Savior calls His followers to be in communion with Him from the depths of our hearts to the point that we embody the divine mercy, loving our enemies like God, Who cares even for “the ungrateful and selfish.”  That means that He cares even for people like me and you.

 

To become a person so radiant with the love of Christ that we convey His love even to people we do not like and who do not like us obviously requires much more than the culturally accommodated religiosity that is all around us.  To love our enemies as He loves us requires our deep spiritual transformation and healing as living icons of God.  We must not, then, rest content with confessing Orthodox dogma, coming to Church, devoting ourselves to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and avoiding the most obvious forms of sin in our outward behavior.  These endeavors are all virtuous and we must not neglect or diminish them in any way.  We must remember, however, that they provide the foundation and structure of our life in Christ.  It is through them that we open ourselves to receive the strength that we need to take up the difficult struggle each day to reject the habits of thought, word, and deed that so easily lead us to treat our neighbors according to our passions and not according to the mercy of the Lord.  We must do the hard work of actually engaging the battle to live faithfully each day. If we do not and persist in refusing to love others as Christ has loved us, we will weaken ourselves spiritually to the point that we will find it simply impossible to love God, for “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” (1Jn. 4:20)   

 

St. Silouan the Athonite provides good advice on how to grow in love for those who offend us:  

I beseech you, put this to the test.  When a man affronts you or brings dishonor on your head, or takes what is yours, or persecutes the Church, pray to the Lord, saying: “O Lord, we are all Thy creatures.  Have pity on Thy servants, and turn their hearts to repentance,” and you will be aware of grace in your soul.  To begin with constrain your heart to love enemies, and the Lord, seeing your good will, will help you in all things, and experience itself will show you the way.  But the man who thinks with malice of his enemies has not God’s love within him, and does not know God.[1]

 

            It would be hard to overstate how radically countercultural such an approach is in light of the incessant calls to grievance, vengeance, and division that bombard us.  So many people proudly proclaim today that to be true to ourselves means to celebrate and inflame our passions, especially when that leads to the perverse pleasure of exalting ourselves and demonizing others.  St. Paul’s plea to the confused Gentile Christians of Corinth is surely one that we need to hear: “Brethren, we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.  Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them,’ says the Lord, ‘and touch nothing unclean; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.’” Note that the Apostle addresses Gentile converts who had fallen back into many forms of corruption as “the temple of the living God.”  They were not simply people living in a given time and place with a certain set of temptations and weaknesses but truly the Body of Christ by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.  He applies instructions from the Old Testament on the importance of God’s children separating themselves from worldly corruption to them as he admonishes them to embrace the calling to live faithfully as who they had become in Christ.

 

Like the confused, divided, and compromised Christians of Corinth, we must refuse to engage in popular cultural practices that so easily corrupt our faithfulness to the Lord as living members of His Body, the Church.  We are “the temple of the living God” in which all the divisions fueled by fear, resentment, and the refusal to forgive may be overcome.  Like the Corinthians, however, we so easily fall back into the old ways of sin when we refuse to keep a close watch on the thoughts of our hearts and to reject those that keep us from seeing anyone as a neighbor who bears God’s image just as we do. Obvious and subtle temptations are all around us to refuse to treat at least some of our neighbors as we would like them to treat us.  We may not worship in the pagan temples of Corinth, but the spiritual gravity is the same when we give ourselves to the false gods of our passions that blind us to what it means to live as "sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.  Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” 

 

Like it or not, the true state of our souls is revealed by how we treat those we find it hardest to love. That is why we must be on guard against obsessing about the failings of people who have wronged us and cultivating fear and anger toward those who are on the other side of any division or argument. We must remember that we are each “the chief of sinners” and share in the life of Christ by His grace, not according to our personal accomplishments or opinions.  As with the rest of the Christian life, the challenge is not to see and treat others in light of our passions but as God sees and treats us all according to His love.  That being the case, we must take up the struggle in thought, word, and deed each day of our lives to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God.”

 

---

[1] Archimandrite Sophrony, Saint Silouan the Athonite, 377.

Homily for the Sunday After the Elevation of the Holy Cross in the Orthodox Church

Galatians 2:16-20; Mark 8:34-9:1

    As we continue to celebrate the Elevation of the Holy Cross, we must remain on guard against the temptation of thinking that all our Lord’s Cross requires of us are mouthing pious words and cultivating warm feelings.  Through His Self-Offering on the Cross, Christ has conquered death and brought salvation to the world.  For us to share personally in His great victory, we must take up our own crosses, deny ourselves, and follow Him each day of our lives.  If we refuse to do so, we will show that we are ashamed of our Lord and want no part in Him or His Kingdom. We will show that we prefer to continue in the old ways of death rather than to enter by His grace into eternal life.    

            Peter was in precisely such a state when he tried to explain to Christ that dying on the Cross had nothing to do with being the Messiah.  That is when the Lord famously said, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”  That is the context for today’s gospel passage as Christ teaches that following Him is not a way to gain anything at all according to the standards of this world, but a calling to offer ourselves without reservation, no matter the cost.  

            The calling to take up our crosses stands in stark contrast to the persistent temptation to try to use religion to exalt ourselves in our own minds.  Some try to use the Cross to support their preconceived notions about political and cultural agendas as they identify their favored type of earthly kingdom with our Lord’s heavenly reign.  Others try to use the Cross to justify their own religious or moral superiority over their family members, friends, or neighbors.  To do any of those things is to be ashamed of our Crucified Lord and His words because it is nothing short of blasphemous to corrupt the great sign of our salvation into an instrument for serving our self-centered desires for earthly glory. Quite to the contrary, our Lord’s Cross calls us to turn away from addiction to gratifying our passions as we offer ourselves in union with His great Self-Offering for the salvation of the world.     

In our epistle reading from Galatians, Saint Paul opposes fellow Jewish Christians who relied too much on their own ability to obey the Old Testament law and would have required the same of Gentile converts.  Refusing to trust in his own ability to obey religious rules, he writes that, “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.”  Paul took up his cross by enduring many struggles and difficulties out of faithfulness to the Lord, ultimately dying for him as a martyr.   He wrote to the Colossians that “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church.” (Col. 1:24)

There is obviously nothing deficient in our Lord’s great Self-Offering.  All that is lacking is our taking up our own crosses in obedience to the Lord’s calling to deny ourselves and follow Him. Because of our own passions and the brokenness of our world of corruption, the struggle for faithfulness inevitably requires suffering, but not as though pain were somehow pleasing to God in and of itself.  Such suffering results from the inevitable tension we experience in embracing the struggle to offer ourselves fully to Christ. There is so much within each of us that does not want to do that. Truly taking up our crosses means fighting the difficult battle of confronting our own personal brokenness each day as we reject thoughts, feelings, and habits that would keep us focused on serving ourselves and the false gods of this world.  

  Christ prayed the night before His crucifixion, “Father, if You are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but Yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) He ascended the Cross in free obedience, and no one forces us to take up our crosses either.  Many problems and pains come upon us without our asking for them in this life, even to the point of death, and it is so easy to refuse to suffer in a spiritually health way. As Job’s wife suggested, we can “Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9) in response to frustrations and disappointments.  We can refuse to offer our wounds to Christ for healing by ignoring them or convincing ourselves that we are still better off spiritually than the people we like to condemn.  Doing so will simply fuel our passions, blind us with spiritual pride, and corrupt our relationships with others.

Since freedom is an intrinsic dimension of being in God’s image, no one can make us take up our crosses. Only we can unite ourselves to Christ in His Great Self-Offering for the salvation of the world. Regardless of the circumstances, we have the freedom to refuse to fall into despair, for any instance of suffering provides an opportunity to purify the desires of our hearts as we learn to entrust ourselves more fully to the Lord.  Difficulties by their nature present challenges to which we may respond in a Christlike way or according to our passions.  He offered up Himself fully upon the Cross and refused to respond in kind to those who hated and rejected Him.  Likewise, we may unite ourselves to Him in every dimension and circumstance of our lives, including those in which we are sorely tempted not to respond as He did. Illness, broken relationships with others, worries about the future, regrets about the past, crushed hopes, and even the worst losses imaginable all present opportunities to grow in “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”  Saint Paul wrote that “those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”  (Gal. 5:22-24)

Our self-centered and distorted desires usually rear their ugly heads quickly when we face trying circumstances.  If you are like me, you sometimes react like Jonah when the vine that gave him shade was eaten by a worm.  That was a very small thing, but Jonah became so angry that he literally wished he would die. (Jonah 4:5-11)   Other times we face circumstances so grave that must struggle mightily not to fall into despair about life itself.  Whether in matters small or great, none of us lacks the opportunity to take up our crosses daily as we struggle to find healing for our souls. 

Doing so usually does not require anything particularly dramatic or extraordinary.  It is normally a matter of focusing on the basic disciplines of the Christian life, such as refusing to accept sinful thoughts into our hearts, forgiving those who have wronged us, and trusting that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 8:39) The more that we open our souls to the Lord’s healing strength through prayer, repentance, and serving our neighbors, the less time and energy we will have for stirring up and embracing the impassioned thoughts that lead to sinful actions.  The less that we cultivate worry, fear, and resentment, the more we will be able to pray to God from our hearts to grant what is best for all concerned in even the most broken circumstances of our lives. We must follow the Apostle’s teaching, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7) This is the path for gaining the strength to take up our crosses, deny ourselves, and follow Christ. 

To do so, we must choose to embrace the struggle of dying to our vain illusions about ourselves, other people, and our world.  Our hope is neither in perfection acquired by our own willpower nor in our ability to dominate anyone else, but in the gracious mercy of the One Who offered up Himself for our salvation purely out of love.  Through the Cross, He has brought life in the midst of death, light in the midst of darkness, and joy in the midst of despair.  We will receive His healing as we persistently offer ourselves to Him in humble faith, no matter what challenges, pains, or disappointments life may bring us.  That is how we may die to the corrupting power of sin and enter into the blessedness of His Kingdom.  The only way to truly elevate the Holy Cross is by denying ourselves and taking up our own crosses to follow the Savior each day of our lives.  That is how we show that we are not ashamed of Him and His Cross, which remains a weapon of peace, a trophy invincible, and the great sign of our salvation.

 

 

 

Homily for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the Orthodox Church

 

1 Corinthians 1:18-24; John 19:6-11, 13-20, 25-28, 30-35

 

            We live in an age in which many people do not acknowledge that they are accountable to God or any standard of truth for their actions, especially in how they treat those they view as their enemies.  Dark passions of anger, hatred, and vengeance easily spread like a cancer in our souls when we accept no higher truth than our own desires.  Pontius Pilate said, “What is truth?”  in response to Christ saying His Kingdom is not of this world and that He came into the world in order to testify to the truth. (John 18: 36-38)  Since Pilate’s deepest desire was for his own position of power in the Roman Empire, he allowed the public execution of an innocent Man Whom he knew was no political threat to Rome when the leaders of the Jews shouted, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar…We have no king but Caesar.”

            Pilate and those who called for the Lord’s crucifixion were essentially nihilists who believed in nothing other than their own desire for power in this world.  John’s gospel describes the response of the Sadducees and Pharisees to the Lord’s raising of Lazarus in this way: “Here is this man performing many signs.  If we let Him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation. Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, ‘You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.’” (Jn. 11:47-50) 

            Like crime bosses arranging to have someone murdered without bloodying their own hands, these men found a way to get the Roman Empire to do their killing for them.  They ironically presented themselves as being more loyal to Caesar than Pilate and publicly challenged him to prove his fidelity to Rome.  They had no principles at all other than their own immediate self-interest.  Pilate shrewdly reminded them of their subservient status by putting a sign on the Lord’s Cross that read “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek in order to make perfectly clear to everyone who really had the power in this situation.

            Those who think in such worldly terms wallow in a pit of despair and use their brutal domination of others to distract themselves from their own weakness before the grave as along as possible.  As we celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross today, we enter into the most foundational reality of the Christian faith:  namely, that through His Cross our Savior has conquered the power of death, emptied the tomb, and made us participants in His eternal life.  He has liberated us from slavery to the fear of death, which makes it possible for us to become radiant with His love, forgiveness, and service even of those we consider our enemies.  As He said from the Cross about those who rejected, condemned, and killed Him, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” (Lk. 23:34)

            Whether in first-century Palestine or in our own society today, the Cross of Christ appears foolish according to the ways of the world.  As St. Paul wrote, it is “a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”  The established religious and political powers of first-century Palestine did their best to destroy our Lord in the most public and humiliating way possible.  All that they accomplished, however, was to reveal their own impotence before a Kingdom that stands in judgement over all their vain attempts to find peace by dominating and destroying their enemies.  The great leaders and empires of history are dead and gone.  No matter what our opinions may be about politics and world affairs today, they will never bring healing to our souls.  The more we allow the projects of earthly factions to take root in our hearts, the harder it will be for us to take up our own crosses in learning to love those with whom we disagree.  

            This past week was the 24th anniversary of 9/11, an unspeakably tragic day of unimaginable violence that those old enough to remember will never forget.  In the aftermath of such barbarism, the passions of some led them to take vengeance on innocent people of Middle Eastern descent, including by burning The Orthodox Church of the Redeemer in California.  The gospel passage that survived the fire read, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matt. 5:38-39)  When the priest from that parish visited the 9/11 Museum last year, he was shocked to find that the very same gospel passage had survived the destruction of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church, which was destroyed on that awful day.  It was fused to a piece of metal and opened to the identical words of our Lord.[1] 

 

            Apart from the Savior’s Cross and glorious resurrection, such teachings would probably strike us as beautiful ideals that are simply irrelevant for a world in which terrorists kill thousands, armies intentionally slaughter countless civilians, shooters regularly take the lives of school children, and assassins murder public figures.   As St. Paul taught, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins…If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” (1 Cor. 15:  17-19)   But because death could not hold captive the God-Man Who offered Himself for our liberation from corruption in all its forms, His Cross stands as the invincible trophy and weapon of peace through which the joy of eternal life has come to the world.  By ascending the Cross in free obedience, He revealed the power of sacrificial, forgiving love that empties the tombs, raises the dead, and brings us by grace into the communion of the Holy Trinity. That is why we elevate the Cross today as the great sign of our salvation in Jesus Christ.

 

As we celebrate the Exaltation of the Cross, let us examine ourselves to see if our lives appear foolish by the standards of the fallen world because of our faithfulness to Jesus Christ. Let us search our souls for signs that we view our neighbors and our world in light of the fear of death instead of in light of the Savior’s glorious resurrection.  Let us take up the cross of refusing to fill our eyes, ears, and minds with media that tempts us to hate, disregard, or refuse to forgive anyone who bears the image and likeness of God.  If such passions have taken root in our souls, we must pray, fast, give alms, and struggle to mindfully reject such thoughts and feelings so that we may become more personally receptive to the gracious divine energies of our Lord.

 

The challenge of living cruciform lives is surely great because nothing about the Cross makes sense according to conventional standards.  We simply cannot get around the truth that the Cross was and is a scandal in this world.  Humble self-sacrifice is not the path to power. Dying at the hands of enemies is not a sign of success.  Dead people do not rise up from their graves. Such apparent wisdom is revealed to be utter foolishness, however, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  As St. Paul taught, “the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”  The One Who reigns is not the person with the largest army, greatest amount of money, or the most political power.  The One Who reigns is “the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world.”    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

[1] Fr. Samer Youssef, “The Gospel in the Ashes,”  https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/2564

Homily for the Sunday Before the Elevation of the Holy Cross and the Nativity of the Theotokos in the Orthodox Church

 

Galatians 6:11-18; John 3:13-17

It is easy to fall into despair when the deepest desires of our hearts go unfulfilled. When that happens, we suffer but also have an opportunity to learn to entrust ourselves to God in a way that is not focused simply on getting what we want.  In our pain and disappointment, we may learn to find joy as we receive unanticipated blessings that enable us to fulfill our distinctive vocations.  It is by embracing the struggle to take up our crosses in humble obedience in such circumstances that we become “a new creation” as those transformed personally by the gracious divine energies of our Lord.

The Savior’s grandparents Saints Joachim and Anna had despaired of fulfilling their role in the ongoing life of the Hebrew people due to their childlessness well into old age.  God heard their prayers, however, and miraculously blessed them to conceive a daughter, whom they offered to the Lord by taking her to live in the Temple as a three-year old. That is where she grew up in purity and prayer as she prepared to become the Living Temple of the Lord, the Theotokos who would contain the Son of God in her womb as His Virgin Mother.  Her parents had learned through decades of bitter disappointment that there was much more to life than getting what they wanted on their own timeline.  Through their patient endurance, they were prepared to receive the unlikely blessing of a daughter who would give birth to the Messiah.  That is how they fulfilled their unique role in the life of Israel in ways well beyond their own expectations.

Christ Himself fulfilled the hopes of the Hebrew people in a surprising fashion. In today’s epistle reading, St. Paul argues against fellow Christians of Jewish heritage who thought that Gentile converts had to be circumcised in obedience to the Old Testament law.  He rejected that practice, “For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.”  As St. Paul taught, “you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal. 3: 26-29) By conquering death through His Cross and resurrection, the Savior has opened the gates of Paradise to all who respond to Him with faith, regardless of their ethnic or religious background.  As He said to Nicodemus in today’s gospel reading, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

Our Lord was lifted up upon the Cross because, contrary to the expectations of the Pharisees, even the strictest obedience to the Old Testament law could never have made us “a new creation.” The cycle of birth and the grave had reigned ever since the corruption of our first parents for those who had the law and for those who did not. The path out of slavery to corruption was not through obedience to religious rules, but in being healed by the gracious mercy of God, Who blessed an elderly, righteous Jewish couple with a long-awaited daughter named Mary.   She, in turn, received the unique blessing of becoming the Virgin Mother of the New Adam, Who would set right all that the first Adam had gotten wrong.  The Theotokos is the New Eve through whom Life came into the world.  Her birth foreshadows the coming of the Savior in Whom we are born again for the life the Kingdom.

In Christ’s conversation with the Pharisee Nicodemus, He spoke not of law, but of the life into which we enter by faith, saying that “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”  He refers here to an event described in Numbers 21:8-9, when the Hebrews were saved from deadly snake bites when they looked at the bronze snake held up by Moses in the desert.  Christ does not describe Moses here in connection with the Ten Commandments, but instead as foretelling His victory over death through the Cross. Against those who trusted in their obedience to the law, St. Paul wrote, “far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.”  Through His Cross, Christ has liberated us from obsession with self-justification so that we may become “a new creation,” being born again into the eternal life that He has brought to the world

In order to find the healing of our souls in Him, we must embrace the struggle to take up our crosses like Joachim and Anna, who bore the heavy cross of childlessness for decades.  When God miraculously blessed them with the conception and birth of a daughter, they offered her to grow up in the Temple.  After decades of faithfulness amidst disappointment, they knew that God’s blessing was not their private possession but a calling to offer even the greatest desire of their hearts to Him.  The Theotokos followed their example by bearing the unbelievably heavy cross of seeing her Son lifted up for the salvation of the world.  As St. Symeon prophetically told her, “a sword will pierce your own soul also.”  (Luke 2:35)

As members of Christ’s Body, the Church, we reap the blessings of the faithful obedience of Joachim and Anna and of the Theotokos.  We must now take up our own crosses as we unite ourselves more fully to Christ in His great Self-Offering for the salvation of the world.  It is only by dying to our obsession with getting what we want from God on our terms that we will be able to know the joy of becoming His “new creation.”  We will condemn only ourselves if we celebrate the faithfulness of the Theotokos and her parents while not following their holy examples.  They did not try to use God to serve their agendas or justify themselves. They humbly entrusted themselves to Him in ways that required deep faith and personal sacrifice.  We must do the same as we endure the struggle to “seek first the Kingdom of God” with the assurance that He will grant what is best for us, our loved ones, and our world. (Matt. 6:33)  

We will remain enslaved to the corruption of the first Adam and Eve if we refuse to crucify the disordered desires and unholy habits that keep us wedded to the self-centered misery and despair from which Christ came to set us free.  The birth of the New Eve foreshadows our salvation in the New Adam through His Cross.  “For God sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”  Let us celebrate the Nativity of the Theotokos by freely taking up our crosses as we turn away from all that distracts us from entering into the great joy of the fulfillment of the ancient promises to Abraham to which the Savior has shockingly made us heirs by faith.   “For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.”  That is precisely who our Lord, the New Adam, calls us all to become as those transfigured personally by His grace.  

 

Forgiving Others as Christ Has Forgiven Us: Homily for the Eleventh Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

Matthew 18:23-35

It is so easy to lose perspective on the circumstances of our lives and how we respond to them.  We are often so blinded by the limits of our perspective that we ignore the obvious and focus on matters of relatively little importance.  We fall prey to this temptation especially when our passions are inflamed to the point that we do not see ourselves or our neighbors clearly.  That is precisely what happened in the parable in today’s gospel reading.

The first servant begged for more time to pay an unbelievably large debt and his master responded with shocking mercy, forgiving the debt completely. But instead of sharing the mercy that he had received with a fellow servant who owed him much less, the man refused to show any compassion or patience at all.  He had the second servant put into prison until he could pay the full amount.  When the master heard what had happened, he had the first servant put in jail until he could repay the massive amount he owed.  Christ concludes the parable with these sobering words: “So also My heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

This parable presents an uncomfortable truth:  How we treat those who have wronged or offended us reveals the true state of our souls.  Unlike those who understand the faith in legalistic terms, Orthodox Christianity teaches that our Lord’s healing mercy transforms us as persons in relation to one another:  If we have embraced His forgiveness, then His gracious divine energies must permeate our lives.  He said, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”  To become radiant with mercy to the point we do not limit our love only to people who treat us well is necessary to obey Christ’s commandment: “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5: 44-48)

If we dare to call upon God’s forgiveness for our sins, we will condemn ourselves as hypocrites if we refuse to forgive others.  He is infinitely holy and we are each the chief of sinners against the Father Who sent His Son for the salvation of the world. (Jn. 3:17)   As those who ask for mercy beyond what we could possibly deserve, how could we possibly be justified in refusing to forgive someone else?   The God-Man enables us to become like Him in holiness, and He forgave even those who rejected, betrayed, and killed Him.  Since Christ has identified Himself with even the lowliest people, how we treat those who have offended us is how we treat our Lord.  Everyone is a living icon of God. As St. John wrote, “If anyone says ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar.  For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”   (1 Jn 4:20) When we refuse to forgive others, we show not only a lack of love for them, but also for the Savior.

Despite our best intentions, forgiveness of those who have wronged us deeply rarely comes quickly or easily.  Forgiveness is not simply a matter of what we say or how we act, but roots in our hearts, even as murder roots in anger and adultery roots in lust.  Christ calls us to share in His life so fully that we acquire the purity of heart that comes from the healing of the corruption that darkens our spiritual vision.    A necessary step in embracing that healing is to mindfully turn away from obsessing about the wrongs of others and holding grudges. We gain the strength to do so by opening our hearts to the healing power of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul wrote, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Gal. 5:22-23) As St. Siluoan the Athonite taught, “One can only love one’s enemies through the grace of the Holy Spirit.” And “He who does not love his enemies, does not have God’s grace.”

How we respond to those who have wronged us reveals the true state of our souls in a way that goes beyond simplistic distortions of the Christian faith.  Regardless of our opinions about anything, how right we may be in any disagreement, or what warm feelings we may have about Christ, if we are so enslaved to the passions of pride and anger that we hate, condemn, and refuse to forgive anyone, then we reject our Lord because we refuse to embrace His gracious healing to the point that we conform our character to His.  We so easily become blind to the image of God in those we condemn or resent due to our own passions.  Doing so is nothing less than repeating Cain’s murder of Abel in our hearts.   Apart from the healing power of the Holy Spirit, there is simply no escape from slavery to an endless cycle of resentment and retribution that leads only to the grave.  We do not have to look very closely at our society and world to see the tragic results of living that way. 

The Savior endured the full consequences of such depravity in His crucifixion and death to lead us from the grave to the glory of the heavenly kingdom through His resurrection on the third day.  He abides in our hearts through the Holy Spirit through Whom we are able to cry out to God “Abba, Father,” for we are not slaves, but beloved children of God, heirs to all the promises to Abraham through faith in Christ. (Gal. 4:6) In order to receive His healing strength, we must open ourselves as fully as possible to the power of the Holy Spirit.   He is “everywhere present and fills all things” and we have received Him personally in the holy mystery of Chrismation.  In order to acquire the fruits of the Spirit, we must actively cooperate with God’s grace by struggling to grow in humility, which means learning to see ourselves as we truly are.  That is what the first servant in today’s parable obviously lacked.  When we know in our hearts that we are the chief of sinners and recognize that our very existence and all our blessings are dependent upon the undeserved mercy of the Lord, then we will no longer be driven to condemn anyone else.

Growing in humility is the only way for us to find healing for our passions, for our disordered desires ultimately root in the pride of refusing to see ourselves clearly.  To grow in humility, we must ask forgiveness of those we have wronged and quickly embrace the struggle to forgive those who have wronged us.  When the wrongs of others come to mind, we must pray for God to forgive our sins through their prayers and to grant what is best for them according to His love.  Instead of brooding over their offenses, we must mindfully turn the thoughts of our hearts to God through the Jesus Prayer as we ask for healing from all the ways that our sins have marred the beauty of our souls.

As in all things, we must be mindful, keeping a close watch on our thoughts and desires as we refuse to welcome into our hearts anything that would hinder our healing. The more that we acquire the humility to see ourselves as we truly are before the Lord, the more we will convey to others the same mercy that we have received from Him. To gain the spiritual strength to forgive others as we have been forgiven is not something that happens in an instant but is the fruit of the ongoing journey to embrace the healing power of the Holy Spirit.  No matter where we are on this path or how many times we stumble upon it, we must not despair but instead persist in fulfilling our high calling to “love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matt. 5: 44-45)   In Christ Jesus, our calling is nothing less than to love as God has loved us.